Notices by Carly Sagan (carlysagan@mastodon.social)

I was wondering how much time scientists spend applying for funding - & *wow* - I found a SciAm article saying that a 2007 study found that faculty spent 40% of their time looking for funds (!!). Obv., worse now. The article goes on to say that it’d be cheaper in some cases to award funding to everyone bc of how expensive the reviewer process is. Makes me feel better about not having funding, but omg, academia needs serious mental help? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dr-no-money/

A private jet pilot tangential to my work has had covid “at least 4 times.” That’s for private (with less interaction with the public), so commercial must be way worse. We now know that each covid infection causes brain damage & increases risk of disability. I don’t see how this works out. If the average pilot is getting covid at least once a year, we are going to run out of pilots very, very soon. Enjoy your unnecessary flights bc there’s just no way this is going to continue much longer.

A polar bear floated over to Iceland from (presumably) Greenland. Which is such an amazing feat of nature that I didn’t know was happening regularly. And they immediately shot and killed it. My god. It should be globally illegal to immediately shoot and kill an endangered creature? I’m so sad. https://grapevine.is/news/2024/09/19/polar-bear-spotted-in-iceland/

I’m disturbed by the number of women & ppl of color critiquing a presidential candidate that is like them - a woman & person of color. But women, if you think you might leave, just know that Iceland is not it. I’ve scoped it out. I’ve interviewed at pretty much every company here with not a single job offer. There are no opportunities for women. Zip. Zero. Nada. There’s just a law saying they’re “supposed” to hire you.

So, it’s a big fat myth that Iceland has opportunity for women.

@robotistry @ShadSterling imo, there shouldn’t have been an award for these two at all. I’ve been on the receiving end of an AI-created document and it only created annoyance and chaos. These guys are the opposite of science and order. They are just noise. Pretty much every physicist I know is more deserving of a nobel than them. It is a total failure of the Nobel committee.

If a Nobel prize in physics went to machine learning and a guy with a bachelor of arts in psychology, the Nobel now means absolutely nothing. It’s officially just a dumb token for white men.

@ShadSterling huge betrayal. Most of my education is in physics, but I did my master’s in algorithm development and built some NNs. That is NOT physics. It’s just so, so sad that they stooped this low. AI is a bullshit machine. & giving a nobel in physics to a guy that never got any education in physics whatsoever is insanely disrespectful to anyone who is an actual physicist. Wtaf. It’s a meaningless token now.

It seems like every other car on the road is a Tesla, so I decided to count. In my short trip to a cafe (about 10 min away) & back I counted 47 Teslas. FORTY SEVEN. How can that many ppl want to support a horrible billionaire who is destroying our atmosphere? Buying a Tesla is funding Starlink & Starlink may destroy the ozone & more - so think deeper than just “Ouuu, cool electric Elon car.” It’s not cool. And it’s not helping the environment whatsoever.

There’s a lot unknown about our ionosphere and magnetosphere. It’s an active area of science. And the fact that we’re going to fill it up with trash and add to the unknowns is terrifying.

I am so disappointed with science. I just cannot fathom how I could get so much media contact and not get funding after applying all spring/summer. It’s just so ironic how the health of the systems that literally keep us alive are not enough of a money-maker for anyone to care.

I tried an Icelandic dating app & I noticed a lot of guys answered “What’s a turn-on?” with “A positive, up-beat, bubbly attitude” (or something similar). It got me thinking - while I’ve met a lot of women who are positive most of the time - when have I met a man with a “positive, up-beat personality”- I guess never irl. What does that mean? Lol. Are women supposed to be constant-cheerleaders for men and women get none of the cheerleading in return? Um, wtf?

Trump wants to kill NOAA. That means no Space Weather Prediction Center… Statistically, severe space weather is mostly likely when we are coming down from solar max, which we will be during this new presidential term… just a heads up.

“Starlink precipitation” should not be allowable as a term - I’m sorry, what?!

Starlink just launched another batch of satellites during a G4 Geomag Watch?? Unbelievable. They have no idea what they are doing. Waiting for the NOAA Severe Storm press release with angst.

I’m on The Guardian this morning!! I’m so proud of this piece. A lot of comments agreeing with me and disagreeing with me and I welcome it all - I’m just so glad that we are starting to think about how turning our ionosphere into a trash bin isn’t the brightest idea for a so-called intelligent species https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/16/dead-satellite-space-earth-magnetic-field

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. “The biggest flying object ever made” blowing up in the atmosphere is not a “success.” It’s an environmental disaster. This is the sane take and the entire space industry is insane for surrounding our pale blue dot with trash.